Console Wars: Sega, Nintendo, and the Battle That Defined a Generation

A mesmerizing, behind-the-scenes business thriller that chronicles how Sega, a small, scrappy gaming company led by an unlikely visionary and a team of rebels, took on the juggernaut Nintendo and revolutionized the video-game industry. In 1990, Nintendo had a virtual monopoly on the video-game industry. Sega, on the other hand, was just a faltering arcade company with big aspirations and even bigger personalities. But all that would change with the arrival of Tom Kalinske, a former Mattel executive who knew nothing about video games and everything about fighting uphill battles.

The Ultimate History of Video Games: From Pong to Pokemon: The Story Behind the Craze that Touched Our Lives and Changed the World

The Ultimate History of Video Games reveals everything you ever wanted to know and more about the unforgettable games that changed the world, the visionaries who made them, and the fanatics who played them. From the arcade to television and from the PC to the handheld device, video games have entraced kids at heart for nearly 30 years. And author and gaming historian Steven L. Kent has been there to record the craze from the very beginning.

Service Games: The Rise and Fall of SEGA: Enhanced Edition

New Edition! More content, images, and corrected text and facts. Monochrome edition. Starting with its humble beginnings in the 1950s and ending with its swan-song, the Dreamcast, in the early 2000s, this is the complete history of Sega as a console maker. Before home computers and video game consoles, before the Internet and social networking, and before motion controls and smartphones, there was Sega.

Masters of Doom: How Two Guys Created an Empire and Transformed Pop Culture

Masters of Doom is the amazing true story of the Lennon and McCartney of video games: John Carmack and John Romero. Together, they ruled big business. They transformed popular culture. And they provoked a national controversy. More than anything, they lived a unique and rollicking American Dream, escaping the broken homes of their youth to produce the most notoriously successful game franchises in history - Doom and Quake - until the games they made tore them apart. This is a story of friendship and betrayal, commerce and artistry.

All Your Base Are Belong to Us: How Fifty Years of Videogames Conquered Pop Culture

Through the stories of gaming's greatest innovations and most-beloved creations, journalist Harold Goldberg captures the creativity, controversy - and passion - behind the videogame's meteoric rise to the top of the pop-culture pantheon. Over the last 50 years, video games have grown from curiosities to fads to trends to one of the world's most popular forms of mass entertainment.

Extra Lives: Why Video Games Matter

Tom Bissell is a prizewinning writer who published three widely acclaimed books before the age of 34. He is also an obsessive gamer who has spent untold hours in front of his various video game consoles, playing titles such as Far Cry 2, Left 4 Dead, BioShock, and Oblivion for, literally, days. If you are reading this copy, the same thing can probably be said of you, or of someone you know.

Jacked: The Outlaw Story of Grand Theft Auto

Grand Theft Auto is one of the biggest and most controversial videogame franchises of all time. Since its first release in 1997, GTA has pioneered the use of everything from 3D graphics to the voices of top Hollywood actors and repeatedly transformed the world of gaming. Despite its incredible innovations in the $75 billion game industry, it has also been a lightning rod of debate, spawning accusations of ethnic and sexual discrimination, glamorizing violence, and inciting real-life crimes.

The Zero Marginal Cost Society: The Internet of Things, the Collaborative Commons, and the Eclipse of Capitalism

In this provocative new book, Rifkin argues that the coming together of the Communication Internet with the fledgling Energy Internet and Logistics Internet in a seamless twenty-first-century intelligent infrastructure—the Internet of Things—is boosting productivity to the point where the marginal cost of producing many goods and services is nearly zero, making them essentially free.

In the Plex: How Google Thinks, Works, and Shapes Our Lives

Few companies in history have ever been as successful and as admired as Google, the company that has transformed the Internet and become an indispensable part of our lives. How has Google done it? Veteran technology reporter Steven Levy was granted unprecedented access to the company, and in this revelatory book he takes listeners inside Google headquarters - the Googleplex - to explain how Google works.

Debt - Updated and Expanded: The First 5,000 Years

Here, anthropologist David Graeber presents a stunning reversal of conventional wisdom: He shows that before there was money, there was debt. For more than 5,000 years, since the beginnings of the first agrarian empires, humans have used elaborate credit systems to buy and sell goods - that is, long before the invention of coins or cash. It is in this era, Graeber argues, that we also first encounter a society divided into debtors and creditors.

You Are Now Less Dumb: How to Conquer Mob Mentality, How to Buy Happiness, and All the Other Ways to Outsmart Yourself

You Are Now Less Dumb is grounded in the idea that we all believe ourselves to be objective observers of reality - except we’re not. But that's okay, because our delusions keep us sane. Expanding on this premise, McRaney provides eye-opening analyses of 15 more ways we fool ourselves every day. This smart and highly entertaining audiobook will be wowing listeners for years to come.

Replay: The History of Video Games

A riveting account of the birth and remarkable evolution of the most important development in entertainment since television, Replay is the ultimate history of video games. From its origins in the research labs of the 1940s to the groundbreaking success of the Wii, Replay sheds new light on gaming's past.

No Place to Hide: Edward Snowden, the NSA, and the U.S. Surveillance State

In May 2013, Glenn Greenwald set out for Hong Kong to meet an anonymous source who claimed to have astonishing evidence of pervasive government spying and insisted on communicating only through heavily encrypted channels. That source turned out to be the 29-year-old NSA contractor Edward Snowden, and his revelations about the agency’s widespread, systemic overreach proved to be some of the most explosive and consequential news in recent history, triggering a fierce debate over national security....

The One Device: The Secret History of the iPhone

How did the iPhone transform our world and turn Apple into the most valuable company ever? Veteran technology journalist Brian Merchant reveals the inside story you won't hear from Cupertino - based on his exclusive interviews with the engineers, inventors, and developers who guided every stage of the iPhone's creation. This deep dive takes you from inside One Infinite Loop to 19th century France to WWII America, from the driest place on earth to a Kenyan pit of toxic e-waste, and even deep inside Shenzhen's notorious "suicide factories".

The State of Play: Sixteen Voices of Video Games

The State of Play is a call to consider the high stakes of video game culture and how our digital and real lives collide. Here, video games are not hobbies or pure recreation; they are vehicles for art, sex, and race and class politics. The 16 contributors are entrenched - they are the video game creators themselves, media critics, and Internet celebrities. They share one thing: They are all players at heart, handpicked to form a superstar roster by Daniel Goldberg and Linus Larsson.

Prepare to Meet Thy Doom: And More True Gaming Stories

From Masters of Doom author David Kushner comes Prepare to Meet Thy Doom, a compilation of true gaming stories covering many facets of America's biggest entertainment business: the video game industry. In addition to more than a dozen fascinating tales of game creation, play, business, and controversy, Prepare to Meet Thy Doom follows up on Kushner's previous best seller, Masters of Doom, with a long-awaited update.

Civilization: The West and the Rest

The rise to global predominance of Western civilization is the single most important historical phenomenon of the past five hundred years. All over the world, an astonishing proportion of people now work for Western-style companies, study at Western-style universities, vote for Western-style governments, take Western medicines, wear Western clothes, and even work Western hours. Yet six hundred years ago the petty kingdoms of Western Europe seemed unlikely to achieve much more than perpetual internecine warfare. It was Ming China or Ottoman Turkey that had the look of world civilizations.

Off to Be the Wizard

It's a simple story. Boy finds proof that reality is a computer program. Boy uses program to manipulate time and space. Boy gets in trouble. Boy flees back in time to Medieval England to live as a wizard while he tries to think of a way to fix things. Boy gets in more trouble. Oh, and boy meets girl at some point.

How Star Wars Conquered the Universe: The Past, Present, and Future of a Multibillion Dollar Franchise

In How Star Wars Conquered the Universe, veteran journalist Chris Taylor traces the series from the difficult birth of the original film through its sequels, the franchise’s death and rebirth, the prequels, and the preparations for a new trilogy. Taylor provides portraits of the friends, writers, artists, producers, and marketers who labored behind the scenes to turn Lucas’s idea into a legend.

Rise of the Robots: Technology and the Threat of a Jobless Future

In a world of self-driving cars and big data, smart algorithms and Siri, we know that artificial intelligence is getting smarter every day. Though all these nifty devices and programs might make our lives easier, they're also well on their way to making "good" jobs obsolete. A computer winning Jeopardy might seem like a trivial, if impressive, feat, but the same technology is making paralegals redundant as it undertakes electronic discovery, and is soon to do the same for radiologists.

1066: The Year That Changed Everything

With this exciting and historically rich six-lecture course, experience for yourself the drama of this dynamic year in medieval history, centered on the landmark Norman Conquest. Taking you from the shores of Scandinavia and France to the battlefields of the English countryside, these lectures will plunge you into a world of fierce Viking warriors, powerful noble families, politically charged marriages, tense succession crises, epic military invasions, and much more.

Einstein's Relativity and the Quantum Revolution: Modern Physics for Non-Scientists, 2nd Edition

"It doesn't take an Einstein to understand modern physics," says Professor Wolfson at the outset of these 24 lectures on what may be the most important subjects in the universe: relativity and quantum physics. Both have reputations for complexity. But the basic ideas behind them are, in fact, simple and comprehensible by anyone. These dynamic and illuminating lectures begin with a brief overview of theories of physical reality starting with Aristotle and culminating in Newtonian or "classical" physics.

Dungeon Hacks: How NetHack, Angband, and Other Roguelikes Changed the Course of Video Games

In 1980, computers were instruments of science and mathematics, military secrets and academia. Stern administrators lorded over sterile university laboratories and stressed one point to the wide-eyed students privileged enough to set foot within them: Computers were not toys. Defying authority, hackers seized control of monolithic mainframes to create a new breed of computer game: the roguelike, cryptic, and tough-as-nails adventures drawn from text-based symbols instead of state-of-the-art 3-D graphics.

Failure Is Not an Option: Mission Control from Mercury to Apollo 13 and Beyond

Gene Kranz was present at the creation of America's manned space program and was a key player in it for three decades. As a flight director in NASA's Mission Control, Kranz witnessed firsthand the making of history. He participated in the space program from the early days of the Mercury program to the last Apollo mission, and beyond. He endured the disastrous first years when rockets blew up and the United States seemed to fall further behind the Soviet Union in the space race.

Publisher's Summary

The story of Nintendo’s rise and the beloved icon who made it possible

Nintendo has continually set the standard for video game innovation in America, starting in 1981 with a plucky hero who jumped over barrels to save a girl from an ape.

The saga of Mario, the portly plumber who became the most successful franchise in the history of gaming, has plot twists worthy of a video game. Jeff Ryan shares the story of how this quintessentially Japanese company found success in the American market. Lawsuits, Hollywood, die-hard fans, and face-offs with Sony and Microsoft are all part of the drama. Find out about: Mario’s eccentric yet brilliant creator, Shigeru Miyamoto, who was tapped for the job because he was considered expendable; Minoru Arakawa, the son-in-law of Nintendo’s imperious president, who bumbled his way to success; and the unexpected approach that allowed Nintendo to reinvent itself as the gaming system for the nongamer, especially now with the Wii.

Even those who can’t tell a Koopa from a Goomba will find this a fascinating story of striving, comeuppance, and redemption.

Don't get me wrong, I love my nonfiction, documentarian fare when it comes to reading; but when it comes to books of this type, I am accustomed to informative rather than entertaining.

I finished this book in under 24 hours (where typically I take days or weeks). It was just that interesting and fun(!) to listen to!

To be sure, it contains a few (minor) factual errors, and the narrator occasionally produces a cringeworthy pronunciation...but if you have any interest in Nintendo, Mario, or the history of videogames in general, read this well-researched, well-written book. You won't be sorry.

As someone who was born in 71, this book was meant for me. It should be required reading for people who read Ready Player One, which I highly recommend. I knew things the reader was going to say before he said it, which is always a treat when listening to an audio book, but the real treat was that he would then give you the behind the curtain details. Pop culture has put forth so many myths about games, characters, and the Big N itself and this book dispels them all. This book even features snip-its about Mikhail Gorbachev, George W. Bush, astronauts, the Beatles and to many others to list. As the book went through each era, I can remember where I was, who my friends where, the rumors that would fly about the next greatest thing that was coming out. It's easy to be an armchair quarterback and hindsight is always 20/20 right... but I can look back and remember how my friends and I would think than Nintendo was genius at times or wondering what the hell they were thinking. This book gives you real insight to the evolution of a business, an industry, a culture and a way of life. From a business stand point this shows how making sure it's right before it comes out is critical... "there's no such thing as late game once it comes out, but a bad game will always be bad". On the other hand the race could be over by the time your unbeatable car is finished.

I've read a number of other video game books but never listened to one -- the read does an incredible job on this. The book itself is quite good and even the biggest Nintendo nerd will learn something. Note to the author however, what's with the stupid Green Peace mention at the end? Completely out of place and annoying, but it's only like a minute or two so don't let that ruin the book. I would love to see the author do a full history of Nintendo, this covers a lot of it, but there is a lot of stuff missed as well since this focuses more of Mario. Highly recommend this to any video game / technology / child of the 80s nerd.

Funny, clever, interesting writing with energetic poise narration. I often found myself laughing aloud and being refilled with a long lost desire to revisit my favorite Nintendo games as I continued to listen to this great audiobook. Well worth the time and money!

Ray Porter is my favorite narrator and his reading can make an average book feel great. I think this might be why this book gets such good reviews. Either that, or die-hard Nintendo fans love hearing lists of the gazillions of variations on all the Mario games.<br/><br/>What I got from this book was that Nintendo found a formula that worked and were careful to not change things too much and milk that baby for all they could get out of it.<br/><br/>Don't get me wrong - I like Nintendo. I like that their devices and games are usually high quality, family friendly and I especially liked the Wii with its introduction of less sedentary gaming.<br/><br/>But after the first hour the book, it became less of a personal story and entrepreneurial success story and more like a high level chronology of a corporation's product rollouts.<br/><br/>Still, Ray Porter can make the ingredients list on a packet of peach rings sound enthralling :-)<br/><br/>

Jeff Ryan's style is rather akin to the kind of writing one finds in the A.V. Club or Wired magazine--smart, brisk, and lightly sarcastic. And this is the kind of story you'll read in places like those, too--just expanded into epic full-length book form.

This is the first Ray Porter narration I've listened to. His voice and rhythm reminds me a lot of James Spader for some reason. This is certainly no complaint.

Watching my kids and their friends play video games as they grew up, I never knew what was going on in the production and business end of gaming. Ryan brings it all out and in a most entertaining and enlightening manner. Is Mario Mario ?

This is one of the better audiobooks I have read in a while. I listen to audiobooks in my car, and this is one of those where I often find myself parked in my destinantion just wanting to hear a little bit more of the story.The author is a great storyteller. It's well narrated, well documented, and entertaining.It provides a great story of how Nintendo became a legendary gaming company, what it did right, what it did wrong. It provides a great story about how the games industry grew and how it evolved along with the technology that made it possible.

I grew up in the eighties and played loads of Nintendo games. This book is a straightforward look at the founding and rise of the game company, which was actually founded in the late 1880’s as a card company in Japan but made its first big splash in the U.S. with the 1981 release of Donkey Kong (a mistranslated title that the designers originally intended to be something along the lines of “Stubborn Ape”).

This book is not intended to have Pulitzer-level writing, so yes: as some reviewers have pointed out, the author uses awkward and frequent metaphors. Take, for example, the following excerpt in which the author explains that Shigeru Miyamoto, the game designer who created Mario, generally avoided complex storylines while his engineers sometimes “snuck” them into his games: “All Miyamoto wants from [Mario] is a connection to gamers. He’s at one end of a tug-of-war, pulling for Mario to be recreational, away from the half-hour cut scenes of the storytellers on the other end of the rope. But Miyamoto is only one man, and thus some very clever story sometimes sneaks in under the portcullis.”

The book focuses on describing the design, marketing, gameplay, and ideas behind many of Nintendo’s most- and least-popular titles and game systems. Readers will no doubt remember many of these with great fondness. The book covers far less detail about the personal politics between the people involved in the game company itself... you hear scattered stories about how people arrived at or left the company, but there is nothing earth-shattering or extremely controversial. (If you’re looking for a saga about the internal politics at Nintendo, this story will give you a very cursory overview; look elsewhere.)

I wasn't a big fan of the audiobook narration, but it's passable and not the most critical aspect of a book like this. Ray Porter's voice sounds, remarkably, like a perfect combination of Tom Hanks and Dan Aykroyd. His reading reminded me of the way a sportscaster speaks, which lends itself somewhat to the tone of the book.

Overall, the book is a light and engaging read. If you grew up in the eighties and played Nintendo games and are even slightly passionate about gaming, this book is probably a good choice for you.